I did so good on my diet this week. I went to the gym every day, and I was able to stay below 1,000 calories. When I weighed myself on Thursday, I was down two pounds, which is nothing in the scheme of things but was just enough to keep me motivated.

Then yesterday happened. When I got home from the gym at 4 pm I was starving, even though I had eaten chicken and an egg before I worked out.  Over the next three hours I drank a ton of water and ate healthy, diet-appropriate things (a big bowl of lettuce, an orange, chicken and celery, and beef and cabbage), but nothing was filling me up, and no matter what I ate, I was craving carbs like you wouldn’t believe.

Then I looked at my Period Tracker app on my phone. I love this app and use it quite a bit, mainly when I’m extra emotional and I can’t figure out why. I open my app, it tells me my period is coming in a few days, and that makes me feel better. I mean, it’s nice to know there’s a biological, physiological reason for why I’m being such a crazy bitch or crying for no good reason. Also, I get pretty severe headaches (I went so far as to get an MRI to rule out a brain tumor, that’s how bad they are), and once I started tracking them in my app I discovered that the intensity and frequency of the headaches are tied to my time of the month. Again, good to know.

So I decided to put this insane hunger down in my app for future reference, and when I looked at the calendar, lo and behold, it turned that yesterday I was ovulating. (TMI? Sorry.) Discovering this was a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it was nice to know there was a reason for this hunger. On the other hand, it gave me an excuse to cheat. “Rory, your body is telling you what it needs, and right now it needs carbs!”

So I gave in. I opened the fridge and what was the first thing I saw? Leftover birthday cake. A Chantilly cake, from Whole Foods. I should have thrown it out on Monday, but like I said yesterday, I HATE throwing out food, and I figured Dave or his son could it eat. There was a tiny piece left, and I ate it. And it was good. So good.

Problem was, it didn’t fill me up OR curb my carb craving. Back to kitchen I went. This time I spotted a bag of tortillas shells. Without a second thought I grabbed one. I spread some salsa and sour cream on it and devoured it in less than two minutes.

After the tortilla I felt somewhat satisfied, but now I was in cheat mode, with the mindset of “I’m already cheating, so I’d better get it all in now, because tomorrow I’m back on the diet.” So I went back to the kitchen a third time. This time I settled on spaghetti and avocado sauce, which I had made last Saturday. There was a tiny bit left (again, I was saving it for Dave or his son), so I heated it up and ate it. It was delicious. (Which was a surprise, because I’ve always read that avocados are “best if served right away.” This was a week old and was still good.)

That was the end of my cheating spree. In hindsight it wasn’t TOO bad, mainly because the cake and spaghetti portions were so small – about a handful of each. It could have been much worse (it probably would have been, if I hadn’t eaten all that healthy food earlier in the evening). I don’t feel guilty or anything. It was one misstep, and now I just have to get back on track.